About 100 years after the violin-making history began with Andrea Amati, its art reached a high degree of perfection under Nicolo Amati and his apprentices. There exists no certain record that Francesco Ruggieri, Antonio Stradivari, G. B. Rogeri and Jacob Stainer worked in Nicolo’s atelier, but these masters clearly followed and learned Nicolo’s styles to establish the ground for violin-making.
This lovely violin is an example of Nicolo Amati’s authentic work for a child, dated 1677, with the body length of 330 mm, that is 3/4 size of today.
Its top plate is made of spruce with regular streaks of grain, and its back is composed of only one beautiful plate of slab cut that reminds us of cloudy sky, with so called bird’s eye grain. It is clad in deep orange-gold varnish.
Not only its elegant scroll was formed carefully, but also the whole of the violin was made with a sense of high precision. That is to say, Nicolo Amati’s rich characters are seen prominently.
Its sound is very powerful, but on the other hand, it has deep sweet and delicate tones.